On June 13, 2024, Arthur Erickson’s beloved Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia reopened after 18 months of closure. During this time, its iconic Great Hall was entirely rebuilt from the ground up. The epic reconstruction was steered by Vancouver architect Nick Milkovich, whom Erickson first hired in 1968 and who worked on the original building.

Here’s Milkovich’s account of the project, drawn from an interview with Adele Weder.

Since the Museum of Anthropology was built, the knowledge of earthquake impact has changed; the building was about 25 per cent of what it should be for current codes. The building was already showing signs of deterioration: the plastic skylights leaked like hell, steel reinforcements in the concrete were starting to show, things like that. The Great Hall was the worst off.

We started out by scanning the building components. That’s when we discovered that the concrete columns were actually hollow. Fifty years ago, the lifting capacity of the construction equipment was more limited; it would have been difficult or impossible to raise the largest column, which was 50 feet high. So that’s probably why they were thinned out and hollowed. The engineering consultant had said that it would come down fast in an earthquake—and that’s before we found out that the columns were hollow!

When we found out that it was that bad, we thought it would be really difficult to reinforce it without showing a lot of steel, but doing it that way would have changed the whole character of the building.

The key to the seismic upgrade is what’s called base isolation, so the building can move in an earthquake. The old structure was slab-on-grade concrete, resting directly on the ground. We rebuilt it with precast concrete, with a crawl space under the building and a huge beam under the columns that helps supports it.

And underneath every column, we incorporated rubber-and-steel tips called base isolators. They’ll act like shock absorbers in an earthquake. Our projection is that the building will be able to move up to one foot two inches, in two or three seconds. That was the big move.

The existing walls were tempered glass, which wouldn’t break into deadly shards—but in an earthquake, all that glass would all
instantly shatter and pile up on the ground at the foot of the building. We replaced that glass with laminated sheets of glass, which are stronger and still safe.

Before, the glass plates were pinned to the columns and hung from the beams. Now, long plates of glass are cantilevered over the columns a bit, meeting at the vertical glass plates at a right angle, caulked together with a steel rod in the middle of the caulking, and that
allows for a bit of movement in an earthquake.

I hesitated for about a week before I took on the job. I’m not a huge political animal; I’m just a guy who likes to make things. I had to decide if I could handle the politics of it all. But I knew I could handle the architecture part, and I knew the building well.

And I realized too there was an obligation—a moral obligation, in a way.

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PROJECT Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Phase 3 Expansion (Harrison McCain Pavilion), Fredericton, New Brunswick

ARCHITECT KPMB Architects 

TEXT Peter Sealy

PHOTOS Doublespace Photography

The recently opened Harrison McCain Pavilion at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton, New Brunswick, offers a powerful thesis on what makes good public space. The answer contained within the elegant volume of this 836-square-metre pavilion is not centred on ownership or function, although these factors are certainly relevant. Instead, it is a matter of generosity—of architecture’s ability to enclose a broadly accessible public realm. Designed by KPMB Architects, the McCain Pavilion gives equally to the gallery’s visitors and to the citizens of Fredericton while asking little in return. In so doing, its elegant loggia and light-filled enclosure celebrate the renaissance of an institution now moving beyond a tempestuous period of legal drama over its world-class collection in the early 2000s. 

Inserted between the original Beaverbrook building (a mid-century modernist design by Neil Stewart which dates from 1959) and Queen Street, Fredericton’s main thoroughfare, the pavilion raises the public realm both physically and symbolically. In plan, it uses a well-integrated series of ramps and steps to mediate between the low-lying street, which floods every spring, and the Beaverbrook’s existing galleries. What was once an awkward exterior entrance has been elevated into an enticing procession through delightful spaces. The presence of a fireplace contributes to this sense of civic ritual while also adding a touch of domestic warmth.

The design of the exterior colonnade is an exercise in parallax, causing an oscillating effect of solids and voids as the viewer’s position shifts—be it inside or outside. As a result, the pavilion hovers between classical monumentality and lustrous transparency. Distinct from many neoclassical buildings, the colonnade does not limit visitors to an axial approach. Instead, an exterior ramp placed laterally behind the colonnade draws visitors tangentially—and almost unconsciously—into the pavilion. Meanwhile, the façade’s gentle curve echoes the bends in the Saint John River and Queen Street at the Beaverbrook’s riverfront site. In so doing, it offers a subtle moment of deference to the Second Empire-style provincial Legislative Building across the street. The columns themselves were the result of a propitious collaboration with a precast concrete fabricator in Saint John, New Brunswick. Each one has the same cross-section but is rotated differently, while the intercolumniations are varied.

A newly commissioned mural by the Mi’kmaq artist Jordan Bennett fills both walls which frame the wide ramp linking the McCain Pavilion and the original gallery. The bold colours and symbolic forms of It pulls you in: it pushes you out provide a visual focus to this moment of transition. The presence of Bennett’s mural is an assertion of Indigenous presence within the institutional confines of the gallery and of this latter’s desire to welcome new publics within its walls. Together with the McCain Pavilion’s mute palette, the ensemble of art and architecture ennoble the public realm. 

The notion of indoor public (as opposed to private) space saw a welcome revival around the turn of this century, with museums leading the way. While the commodification of the museum experience is unmistakable—one may think of the title of Banksy’s documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop—at their best, spaces such as the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall or the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Galleria Italia offer grand public rooms, perfect settings for solitary reflection or chance encounters. 

While conceived on a far smaller scale, the McCain Pavilion successfully shares a similar ambition. As KPMB partner Shirley Blumberg and senior associate Matthew Wilson state, “This is a pavilion for looking at Fredericton, a social and community hub in which public life emerges.” The McCain pavilion is frequently used for events, with its ramps and steps creating an impromptu forum for public gatherings. Yet it is the pavilion’s uncontested ability to celebrate quotidian experience—such as drinking a coffee on a winter morning while gazing at the legislature—that is its greatest attribute. 

Balancing between restraint and dynamism, KPMB’s superbly detailed design provides New Brunswick’s capital with an outstanding and generous work of public architecture, whose qualities one hopes will be emulated elsewhere. 

Architectural historian Peter Sealy is an Assistant Professor at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto.

CLIENT Beaverbrook Art Gallery | ARCHITECT TEAM Shirley Blumberg, Matthew Wilson, Francesco Valente-Gorjup, Jinsu Park, Jonathan Santaguida, Lukas Bergmark, Ramin Yamin, Gerald DesRochers| STRUCTURAL Eastern Designers and Company Ltd.| MECHANICAL Crandall | ELECTRICAL RSEI Consultants Ltd. | LIGHTING DotDash | SIGNAGE Entro | BUILDING SCIENCE JMV Consulting | ACOUSTICS Aercoustics | AREA 836 M2 | BUDGET $11 M | COMPLETION September 2022

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PROJECT Montreal Insectarium, Montreal, Quebec

ARCHITECTS Kuehn Malvezzi / Pelletier De Fontenay / Jodoin Lamarre Pratte architects in consortium

TEXT Olivier Vallerand

PHOTOS James Brittain

If you expect to see traditional displays of pinned insects and scores of vivariums when visiting Montreal’s freshly rebuilt Insectarium, you might be surprised. Similarly, for those looking for a striking architectural object, the experience overturns expectations. Rather than focusing on traditional displays or architectural fireworks, the new building is much more about creating a new type of museum journey—one with memorable spaces and lessons that follow visitors long after their visit.

The transformation of the Insectarium resulted from one of three competitions held in 2014 to rethink Montreal’s constellation of nature museums. Founded in 1990 as an addition to the botanical garden, the Insectarium had since grown into one of the world’s largest museums devoted to insects. The competition followed a cultural and scientific project—branded as the Insectarium’s “metamorphosis”—to reimagine the museum’s mission and museological approach, going beyond the simple display of insects. The team selected for the project included Berlin-based Kuehn Malvezzi and Montreal-based Pelletier de Fontenay and Jodoin Lamarre Pratte architectes. For lead design architect Wilfried Kuehn, the competition represented a rare and exciting opportunity to integrate the team’s experience in landscape, architecture, exhibition design, and industrial design. The brief, he notes, was written in a comprehensive way that already paid attention to the different scales of design.

The winning team’s proposal built on the museum’s desire for an innovative immersive experience for visitors. The concept is centered around an understanding of biophilia that aims to guide visitors through experiencing the world as if they were insects. By better understanding insects and learning to live with them, visitors are encouraged to become agents of change for ecological sustainability.

As is often the case, following the competition, budgetary and technical revisions meant that the project was heavily modified—it opened five years later than Montreal’s 375th anniversary, for which it was initially planned. But by strategically compressing the plan and tightly overlapping functions, the team succeeded in retaining the original concept, and only shortening the exhibition path by 14%, while diminishing the overall footprint by 50%.

The visitor’s journey starts outside, with a sloped pollinator garden leading down to the entrance. New greenhouses rise above the ground plane, but most of the building is hidden underground, with only a soon-to-be vine-covered dome hinting at the expanse of the experience awaiting beyond the greenhouses.

Once inside, an unadorned concrete reception area welcomes visitors, filled with light and opening towards the landscape. The bright space is a palate cleanser, before visitors are invited to enter a dark, tight corridor—built from reinforced sprayed concrete to mimic the rammed earth construction originally planned, and immediately calling to mind an ants’ nest. If obvious, the metaphor certainly works: you are being called to experience your environment as an insect. After a few months, the material is already somewhat smoothed out by the touch of visitors, lending it an organic feel that echoes the natural environment of insects. Hubert Pelletier, one of the design architects, explains that the team conducted extensive on-site experimentation to develop a wall construction that would wear well over time, rather than being merely a surface effect.

The tunnel then opens to six cave-like rooms, each with different sensorial experiences aimed at conveying how insects perceive the world differently than us. Here again, the architecture is an integral part of the scientific knowledge being shared, through a floor that vibrates, ultraviolet lighting showing patterns on the floors, an upside-down space, and tight passages. Even though they are fully integrated in the architectural experience, these spaces feel primarily geared towards young children, who are more prone to wholeheartedly accept the invitation to play and spend time engaging with the spaces than adults.

Visitors then exit the tunnel to a more traditional exhibition room, though with a twist. At the centre of the room, immersive vivariums with curved glass fronts allow visitors to have a 180-degree view of live insects. On the room’s walls, live feeds from cameras inside the vivariums project videos of both the insects and the visitors’ faces, for the benefit of those who might not be comfortable getting so close to the live insects.

Visitors then gradually ascend to the dome-roofed room glimpsed from outside—a contemplative space quite different from the initial twisting tunnel, even if built from the same sprayed concrete. A double row of display cases encircles the walls, a visual treatment calling for different scales of reading. The top row organizes insects following a chromatic circle, while the bottom row contains thematic displays. Here again, the experience is completely different from what people might expect from an exhibition: the focus seems to be on the overall impact of the space as much as the individual vitrines, creating a surprisingly versatile space that successfully accommodates both quiet moments and the activities of excited children.

The final space, reached through a long ramp and sliding doors, is the walk-in vivarium housed in a large greenhouse. In a suddenly hot and humid environment, visitors are welcomed by swirling butterflies as well as other insects on an elevated ground, many corralled into small open-air display pens. Along one wall of the glass house, leaf-cutter ants parade along a long, root-like path between their nest and a feeding ground of leaves and flowers.

Unlike many other nature museums, this one does not hide the mechanical systems behind fake trees or in ponds. The design team has chosen instead to highlight the complex integration of the different systems necessary for this artificial environment to survive in Montreal’s climate—a great challenge for a building aiming for LEED Gold. On view as well is an adjoining production greenhouse, where the habitat plants for the insects are grown. The only thing hidden is the complexity of the underground network of offices, exhibition spaces and technical services creating the artificial topography of the greenhouse.

The decision to make everything visible also underscores the research mission of the museum. An app designed for visitors to identify the insects they see in the greenhouse—and later in their everyday life—facilitates scientific exploration, while also helping staff map how insects navigate the space, allowing for a better management of the collection over time. The app is part of a maximally inclusive approach espoused by both designers and curators, where visitors can find different levels of engagement that break the traditional scripted museum experience.

The Insectarium’s management team was thrilled to work with architects open to a co-design process: something they saw as essential to their cultural and scientific project. In response, the architects moved away from typical big, formal gestures, to create instead what Hubert Pelletier describes as “a series of experiences.” Very few informational exhibits are present in the museum, rather, the architectural experience itself creates meaning and becomes the exhibition. Insectarium director Maxim Larrivée is already planning further collaborations with the same design team when the exhibitions need updating. Both the client and design teams emphasize how they took risks with this project. They hope visitors will be as excited as they were to put their fears away, and become better acquainted with their small neighbours.

Olivier Vallerand is Assistant Professor at l’École de design, Université de Montréal.

CLIENT Espace pour la Vie | ARCHITECT TEAM Kuehn Malvezzi—Wilfried Kuehn, Johannes Kuehn, Simona Malvezzi, Nina S. Beitzen, Yu Ninagawa, Jan Imberi, Rebekka Bode, Thomas Guethler, Berenice Corret, Christian Felgendreher, Valeska Hoechst, Andrea Bagnato. Pelletier de Fontenay— Yves de Fontenay, Hubert Pelletier, Yann Gay Crosier, Nathaniel Proulx Joanisse, Nicolas Mussche.  Jodoin Lamarre Pratte architectes—Nicolas Ranger (MRAIC), Christine Nolet, Roxanne Rochette, Catherine Demers, Joannie Quirion, Germain Paradis, Sylvain Morrier, Marc-Antoine Bourbeau, Nathalie Grégoire | STRUCTURAL NCK | CIVIL Génie+, Lévis | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL Dupras Ledoux | LANDSCAPE atelier le balto, Berlin | CONTRACTOR KF Construction | SIGNAGE Kuehn Malvezzi with Double Standards, Berlin | EXECUTION AND SITE SUPERVISION MUSEOLOGY La bande à Paul | SUSTAINABILITY/LEED CIMA+ | AREA 3,600 m2 | BUDGET $31.78 M (excluding museology) | COMPLETION April 2022

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The Montreal Holocaust Museum (MHM) has announced the finalists of the first stage of the international architectural competition for the construction of its new Museum on Saint-Laurent Boulevard.

The jury has selected the following four finalists from among thirty-two projects received from nine countries and submitted anonymously to the jury in the first stage of the competition:

• Atelier TAG et L’OEUF architectes en consortium
• Saucier+Perrotte Architectes
• KPMB Architects + Daoust Lestage Lizotte Stecker
• Pelletier de Fontenay + NEUF architect(e)s

These four teams of architects have been invited to participate in the second stage of the competition, which will end with the jury’s selection of the winning project in July 2022.

The jury selected four finalists whose proposals stood out for their quality and for their potential for development in the second stage of the competition.

The jury also wished to emphasize the relevance and thoughtfulness of the projects proposed and the diverse approaches taken by the finalists in addressing the Museum’s vision and program for its new building.

This is an $80-million project with contributions from the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec ($20 million), Canadian Heritage ($20 million), the Azrieli Foundation ($15 million) and numerous private donors who have contributed to the Museum through its Give Voice fundraising campaign.

The Montreal Holocaust Museum would like to express its gratitude to all the teams that took part in this first stage of the competition. All of the projects received during the first and second stages of the competition will be made public once the winner is announced.

This project addresses a growing public interest and a need for opportunities to learn about the history of the Holocaust, genocide, human rights, and the fight against racism and antisemitism.

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The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) has contracted Selldorf Architects, Diamond Schmitt and Two Row Architect to lead the design phase of AGO Global Contemporary, the museum’s proposed expansion project.

The three architects will work as a team to design an expansion that will display the museum’s growing collection of global modern and contemporary art. Annabelle Selldorf, of Selldorf Architects will lead the design, in collaboration with Toronto-based Don Schmitt of Diamond Schmitt and Brian Porter of Six Nations of the Grand River’s Two Row Architect as Indigenous architect.

“A project with global impact requires an international perspective, grounded in this land and this city,” said Stephan Jost, Michael and Sonja Koerner Director, and CEO of the Art Gallery of Ontario. “AGO Global Contemporary is poised to launch the museum as a force in the international art world – and this team will get us there. It’s a group that is unmatched in its experience and caliber, and reflective of AGO’s Global Contemporary vision. Selldorf Architects is a leader in museum design, having recently completed the Luma Arles in France, and currently working on The Frick Collection in New York. Just last year, Two Row Architect’s Fort Severn Resilient Duplex project was awarded the prize for social equity design. And Diamond Schmitt is putting Toronto on the world stage with David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City and the Ryerson Image Centre here at home. I am confident that this team of architects will produce an exceptional expansion for our museum.”

AGO Global Contemporary will increase exhibition space for the museum’s growing modern and contemporary collection, and present the museum with the opportunity to deliver exhibitions and programming that lead global conversations about art.

The proposed building will be approximately 50,000 gross square feet for Modern and Contemporary art at the AGO. This will be the seventh expansion that the AGO has undertaken since it was founded in 1900. The most recent was the successful Transformation AGO expansion project, designed by Gehry International Architects, Inc.

A goal of this proposed expansion project is to achieve Net Zero Carbon certification, which if successful, would make the addition one of only a few museum spaces globally to accomplish this.

The appointment of an architecture and design team is the first step for the project that will undergo a municipal and public review process and final AGO Board of Trustees approval. A public presentation of a concept is anticipated later this year. 

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PROJECT Biodome Migration, Space for Life natural science complex, Montreal, Quebec

ARCHITECTS KANVA in collaboration with NEUF Architect(e)s

PHOTOS Marc Cramer, unless otherwise noted

Montreal’s grandest—and possibly, its most beautiful—architectural gesture of the past century was the work of French architect Roger Taillibert, responsible for the design of the 1976 Olympic Games’ main sporting structures. Unfortunately, partly because of its novelty, the complex was shrouded in controversy. The unfinished stadium, in particular, attracted a lot of attention before, during, and after the Games.

The real star of the complex, however, is arguably the stadium’s immediate neighbour, the velodrome. City engineers involved in its construction described its structure as being 10 times more complex than the stadium’s. Apart from its technical performance, the 172-metre-long velodrome had—and retains—an exquisite quality about it. The building’s roof is particularly expressive, with splayed arrays of cat-eye skylights. To quote reviewer John Hix, who wrote about the building in these pages 45 years ago, these gave it the appearance of a “giant Paleozoic trilobite coming to rest at the bottom of the sea.”

Post-Olympic pause

As is too often the case with Olympic facilities around the world, the velodrome ended up being used only sporadically in the years that followed the Games. In 1977, it somewhat awkwardly hosted the Salon de la femme. A couple of years later, Botanical Garden director (and future Montreal mayor) Pierre Bourque saw the velodrome as “an immense greenhouse with a fabulous potential.” He proceeded to organize the 1980 Floralies, an international horticultural exhibition, within its walls. Needless to say, Taillibert was horrified.

But in retrospect, this event was prescient of the building’s future rebirth as the Biodome, a decade later. In the 1980s, scientists working at Montreal’s two zoo locations and at the aquarium became increasingly concerned with the poor conditions of their facilities. The Botanical Garden—across the street from the velodrome—started hosting a series of brainstorming sessions to come up a solution. According to biologist Rachel Léger, the Biodome’s first director, “it is within this context that the Biodome was born.” The new concept—an immersive reproduction of natural ecosystems, set in the spacious velodrome—was intended to become, as Pierre Bourque described it, “a rallying call of hope and faith in the future.”

The transformation

Architectural firm Tétreault Parent Languedoc et associés (now merged with Aedifica)—was called in to do a feasibility study and, eventually, to design the new facility. Architect Pierre Corriveau, who was responsible for the concept, recalls: “We had no way of telling whether the Biodome would be a success. We were therefore careful to come up with a project that would be respectful of the existing structure and make it possible to revert the building back to its original function.” The overnight destruction of the rosewood cycling track somehow put an end to that dream. But otherwise, the architectural team consciously avoided altering the building’s main elements. They also meant to keep the skylit ceiling exposed everywhere they could, including in the building’s central node. The idea was not retained at the time due to the use of this space for displaying information related to the exhibits—a decision that led to the introduction of a low ceiling, blocking the view to the skylights above.

The unusual program involved creating replicas of five ecosystems from the Americas. The hope was to raise public awareness and respect for nature through direct contact with animals and plants living in different regions. The challenge was tremendous. Flora and fauna usually found in tropical rainforests had to thrive under the same roof as Quebec beavers, used to a temperate climate, as well as penguins from the much colder Antarctic. Roughly 500 plant species and 4,500 animals from 250 different species were brought in, thanks to a remarkable international network developed over the years by Montreal’s institutions. Filmmaker Bernard Gosselin documented the final stages of construction in a feature-length NFB film, The Glass Ark.

The Biodome opened on June 24, 1992 to a long lineup of eager visitors. The new amenity attracted 750,000 visitors during its first three months. Attendance fluctuated over the years, eventually settling around 850,000 visitors annually—making it the city’s top permanent paid attraction.

Renewal

In 2014, Espace pour la vie (Space for Life)—a new entity created to oversee all of Montreal’s nature museums—launched an international design competition. It aimed to gather ideas for revamping the Biodome, rehousing the Insectarium, and creating a new glass pavilion for the Botanical Garden. Eight architectural teams were selected to take part in the competition’s second stage: four worked on the future Insectarium, and four others on the Biodome. (The Botanical Garden pavilion was put on hold.)

Montreal-based KANVA and Neuf architect(e)s, working with Spanish studio AZPML, won the competition for revamping the Biodome. The project moved forward with the team of KANVA and Neuf. The client’s message had been quite clear. They asked the designers to “redynamize” the Biodome: “to enhance the immersive experience between visitors and the museum’s distinct ecosystems, as well as to transform the building’s public spaces.” The two subpolar areas needed refreshing, along with the Gulf of St. Lawrence ecosystem. Otherwise, the Tropical Rainforest and the Laurentian Maple Forest ecosystems were thriving. The largest concern was the building’s public spaces, which had become outdated and needed a major overhaul.

KANVA’s impactful first move was to remove the bleachers ringing the concrete structure above the main entrance, thus freeing the view to the skylit vault above. The effect is dramatic, exposing not only the elegant skylights but also the building’s impressive Y-shaped concrete legs. The second strategy centered on a new system of partitions that weave throughout the floorplate, made with a translucent textile membrane. The membrane was developed in coordination with Montreal firm Sollertia, founded by one of the Cirque du Soleil’s earliest collaborators.

For visitors arriving at the reinvented Biodome, the renewed spaces have an almost magical effect. The lobby, adorned with a minimalist reception desk and sparse bespoke furniture, sets the stage. Tall, sinuous architectural membranes frame a passageway leading visitors to the central atrium. Everything is set in dreamscape white. KANVA’s project, more about sensorial experience than scientific information, opens up the public areas to the skylit vault and creates an almost meditative space.

Wayfinding is mostly intuitive, with formal graphics reduced to an absolute minimum. The signage indicating the way into the various ecosystems is barely noticeable. Information on the exhibits was moved out of the space, to be accessed through a cell phone application. The digital portal is extremely well designed and informative, albeit somewhat distracting from the animals on view, and not suited to all visitors.

From the central agora, people can choose which ecosystem they want to visit—a change from the earlier layout, where visitors were encouraged to go through the four zones in sequence. The Tropical Rainforest and the Laurentian Maple Forest are the two most spectacular ecosystems in terms of vegetation. However, the subantarctic penguin community remains one of the Biodome’s strongest attractions.

A novelty introduced by KANVA was the transformation of the Subpolar Regions access into an ice-lined tunnel, preparing visitors for the colder temperatures ahead. The exhibit itself, where the subantarctic and subarctic basins sit barely a metre from each other, is less convincing. Fortunately, the charming antics of southern penguins and northern puffins make up for the slight feeling of unease at seeing the two poles brought so close together.

A new mezzanine

One of the new elements introduced by the architectural team is an upper mezzanine, which serves as a rest area for periodic breaks and as the culminating point of a visit. It can be reached directly through stairs from two ecosystems, or by way of a glass-enclosed elevator from the central node. This pristinely designed area is capped by the humbling presence of Taillibert’s skylights. From up above, one gets a bird’s-eye view of the Laurentian Maple Forest, the Gulf of St. Lawrence area, and the enclosed Tropical Rainforest, which resonates with the sounds of chattering parrots.

Also on the mezzanine is a bright yellow interactive exhibit for children, which sits alongside the complex electrical and mechanical systems essential to the workings of the Biodome. As stressed by KANVA principal Rami Bebawi: “We wanted to reveal the mechanics of the Biodome, so that people would understand how complex the balance of life is.”

In an institution dedicated to raising awareness on environmental issues, the building’s energy sourcing has been an ongoing concern, and a geothermal system was installed in 2010. KANVA was also able to tap into a pre-existing heat pump system, which transfers waste energy from cooling the polar regions to keep the rainforest at tropical temperatures.

Back on the entry level, a corridor circling the building leads to the museum shop and cafeteria, adjacent to a second entry point—which is even more stunning than the main entrance, since it is visible from a distance. The membrane walls lining the peripheral corridor display an amazing formal versatility, made possible through the material’s unusual qualities. The only rooms that are perhaps less than optimal in the new configuration are the relocated administrative offices, which may not be sufficiently sound-proofed by the membrane walls.

A new era

The renewed Biodome opened in January 2021, in the midst of a global pandemic and an accelerating climate crisis. As visitors return to Montreal and to the Biodome, one wonders whether Pierre Bourque’s “rallying call of hope” will take a more urgent meaning, and be successful in truly raising awareness of the planet’s increasingly vulnerable ecosystems. For this visitor and Montreal resident, the new Biodome is truly inspiring and speaks of architectural beauty in a way few architects dare to—or are able to—achieve.

That success, however, goes beyond the considerable accomplishments of KANVA and Neuf’s present work. It owes much to the poetic audacity of an ill-understood Roger Taillibert, architect of the 1976 Velodrome. Equally audacious was the idea of transforming an underutilized Olympic building into a pioneering “living museum” with a mission in 1992. The creation of the Biodome was made possible by teams of young, enthusiastic, scientists working side by side with equally enthusiastic architects and engineers.

Building on this groundwork, KANVA was able to go one step further, infusing the Biodome with a dream-like quality. Beyond the need to address the degradation of the natural world, the architects’ intervention speaks to another urgent need: that of surrounding oneself with calm and beauty.

Odile Hénault, former publisher of the architectural magazine section a, has been documenting architecture in Quebec and Canada for decades. She is particularly interested in projects resulting from architectural competitions, a system now widely accepted in Quebec.

CLIENT Space for Life | ARCHITECT TEAM KANVA—Rami Bebawi (MRAIC), Tudor Radulescu (MRAIC), Laurence Boutin-Laperrière, Laurianne Brodeur, Dale Byrns, Gabriel Caya, Eloise Ciesla, Haley Command, Julien Daly, Léon Dussault-Gagné, Andrea Hurtarte, Olga Karpova, Brigitte Messier-Legendre, France Moreau, Andrei Nemes, Killian O’Connor, Claudia Pavilanis, Katrine Rivard, Dina Safonova, Minh-Giao Truong, Joyce Yam. NEUF—Azad Chichmanian, Marina Socolova, David Gilbert, Simon Bastien | STRUCTURAL NCK | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL Bouthillette Parizeau | INTERIORS KANVA | CONTRACTOR Groupe Unigesco | CODE/COST Groupe GLT+ | SPECS Atelier 6 | LIGHTING LightFactor | COLLABORATING EXHIBITION DESIGNER La bande à Paul | COLLABORATING SET DESIGNER Anick La Bissonnière | WAYFINDING Bélanger Design | LAND SURVEYOR Topo 3D | ACOUSTICS Soft dB | AREA 15,000 m2 | BUDGET $37.2 M | COMPLETION June 2020

View the article as it appeared in our June 2021 issue:

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WINNER OF A 2020 GOVERNOR GENERAL’S MEDAL IN ARCHITECTURE

LOCATION Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
ARCHITECT KPMB Architects (Design Architect); Architecture49 (Prime Consultant)

The Remai Modern is situated on Treaty 6 Territory, the traditional homeland of the Métis, on the banks of the South Saskatchewan River. Its mandate is “to enable transformative experiences by connecting art with local and global communities.” The architecture sought to build on the legacy of the Mendel Art Gallery—the city’s original and beloved centre for art and community engagement. Simultaneously, the building aimed to participate in the realization of a 30-year vision to develop Saskatoon’s south downtown into a vibrant riverfront destination, and to establish the city as a national and international destination for art.

Different scales of consideration influenced the architecture. The dramatic Prairie landscape and its crisp light—which have inspired Saskatoon’s artists, and contributed to art critic Clement Greenberg’s influential definition of modernism—led to a minimalist, abstract expression. The site’s L-shaped footprint and the adjacency of the existing Persephone Theatre drove the massing and orientation. The flat topography of the surroundings and the utilitarian beauty of regional agrarian structures inspired a stable geometry of stacked, rectangular volumes. Inside, the diverse needs of contemporary art prioritized the creation of a generous, continuous public realm and highly flexible gallery spaces.

The public areas and gallery spaces support the Remai’s status as a leading centre for contemporary Indigenous art and discourse, and enable the centre to connect with locals as well as with the larger art world. The four stacked, cantilevered volumes are oriented to engage the city to the east and west, and the South Saskatchewan River to the south. The south elevation spans the entire length of the site, giving the Remai a striking presence on the river. Inside, each level offers dramatic views of the river and access to outdoor terraces.

The exterior is clad with copper-coloured mesh, inspired by the copper roof of the nearby Bessborough Hotel, built in 1932. The mesh provides shading, contributing to an environmental strategy to reduce energy consumption by 50 percent compared to similarly sized galleries.

The architecture simultaneously looks backwards and forwards. It forges a strong relationship with the legacy of the Mendel, and supports the standing of Saskatoon as a creative city dedicated to lifelong learning. Ultimately, it has become the heart of the community—a place where locals and visitors gather to share their worldviews through the lens of art.

:: Jury Comments ::  This imposing museum makes a monumental statement about the continuing importance of art in Saskatoon. The gigantic cantilevered boxes showcase acrobatic engineering and minimal, crisp construction details. The boxes reach out to the sides of the site to capture views across the landscape to the South Saskatchewan River. Overall, it makes a coherent exterior expression out of a complicated program, organized internally around a canyon-like atrium.

Read Canadian Architect’s review of this project here.

PROJECT TEAM Bruce Kuwabara, Shirley Blumberg, Matthew Wilson, Paulo Rocha, Matthew Krivosudsky, Terry Kim, Marcus Colonna, David Poloway, Klaudia Lengyel, Jessica Juvet. Architecture49—Grant Van Iderstine, Ron Martin, Brad Cove, Jim Yamashita, Rick Linley, Jaret Klymchuk, Corrine Golden, Phil Harms, Michael Conway, Geoffrey Bulmer, Calee Gushuliak, Ian Douglas, Daryl Hnylycia, Donna Todd, Neil Hulme | CLIENT City of Saskatoon and the Remai Modern | STRUCTURAL Entuitive | MECHANICAL Crossey Engineering | electrICAL/SECURITY/IT/AV Mulvey + Banani | climate Transsolar | LANDSCAPE Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg | COST Turner & Townsend cm2r | ACOUSTICS Daniel Lyzun & Associates | VIBRATION Aercoustics Engineering Ltd. | CIVIL/TRANSPORTATION mmm Group | code Leber | Rubes | LIGHTING Tillotson Design Associates | FOOD SERVICES Kaizen Foodservice Planning & Design | OCCUPANCY October 21, 2017 | BUDGET $80.2 M

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Opened in late 2018, the Royal Alberta Museum is the largest museum in Western Canada, housing both the human history and natural history of Alberta. The design, completed by DIALOG, aims to create a fully-accessible museum that is sustainable and contributes to a vibrant downtown.

The museum has been preserving, collecting and displaying the province’s history for over 50 years. After outgrowing their original home in west-central Edmonton, the Government of Alberta made the decision to move the Royal Alberta Museum to a new location in downtown Edmonton. The blank canvas in the heart of the city presented a unique opportunity to create a perfectly-suited facility with more space for displays, growing collections, and state of the art research labs.

The design creates a dynamic weaving of interior and exterior spaces. Nature is brought into the building through the gardens and terraces, and the building extends out into the landscape. The project scope includes 8,200 net square meters of natural history and human history long-term exhibition galleries, a children’s gallery and bug room, 4,300 net square meters of curatorial, research and collection spaces, a 1,100 square meter feature gallery and associated support space, totalling 22,000 net square meters.

The Royal Alberta Museum project was tendered as a fast-track design-build competition. To be awarded the project, DIALOG competed in an international competition that required a full design be proposed. DIALOG teamed up with museum planner Michael Lundholm and with contractor Ledcor. The collection of subtrades that Ledcor’s team offered was aligned in DIALOG’s values for community wellbeing and building something that is right for the city and province.

For two months, the design team worked closely with Ledcor to submit a complete design. The deep understanding of the site and its context, as well as the efficient back of house design, presented the Royal Alberta Museum with a design that is true to their mission and values.

Once the team was selected, the DIALOG & Lundholm – Ledcor design-build team worked collaboatively with Alberta Infrastructure and the Royal Alberta Museum to refine the design and deliver the finished product.

Royal Alberta Museum has core values of equity and transparency that are reflected through the design of their new space. Though the galleries themselves have strict environmental conditions, the design’s public spaces are daylit, and the spacious, bright lobby is open to the public, acting as a central wayfinding point. Artifacts are on display in the lobby include an airplane, Albertasaurus and a mammoth cast. From the lobby, visitors can see into the Children’s Gallery and its Bug Room (the only galleries where natural light will not harm the contents).

Windows allow views into the research laboratories to reveal the museum’s scientific work. Many Albertans don’t realize how active Royal Alberta Museum is in the preservation and research of Alberta’s history, so this is an eye-opening feature of the new building, enhancing transparency and equity. Upstairs, the Manitou Asinîy Gallery is open to the public with access to the Manitou stone.

The Royal Alberta Museum is intentionally designed in its downtown site. It lies at the intersection of Canada’s two survey traditions: the British Cartesian grid that follows true north, south, east, west (like most of Alberta), and the seigneurial grid from early French settlers that aligns with river frontage, the city’s original ‘main street.’ Inside the museum, the main galleries are offset by 17 degrees, aligning with the historic grids that represent the human history of the site.

Other spaces such as the Children’s Gallery and feature staircase are more curvilinear in shape, reflecting the winding North Saskatchewan River that makes its way through Edmonton, and the natural history of the site. Two outdoor courtyards are exact alignments of streets that were lost over years of development in downtown Edmonton.

On the facade, an image of lightning is abstracted and laser cut into metal panels that wrap around the curving surfaces of The Roundhouse, animating the surface and referencing the Alberta sky. Inside, the polished walls reflect and merge images of the building, the landscape and the visitor.

Functionally, concrete two-way flat plate slabs were selected for most museum floors for their efficiency and cost-effective support of the heavy loads of displays and stored collections. The high thermal mass of the concrete structure is used to store heat, helping protect against temperature fluctuations. This thermal flywheel effect allows for reduced dependence on mechanical systems, and helps protect the museum’s collections in the event of a power outage. The robust nature of the concrete structure allows the building to meet its 100 year design life.

Architecturally exposed concrete surfaces can be found throughout including columns, slab surfaces, edges and soffits. This required a high level of expertise for execution—condition, alignment and tolerance of formwork was critical, and coordination of joint locations, tie holes, chairs, and cast-in services were precisely coordinated.

The staircase leading up to the natural history gallery is a concrete art piece. Designed to mimic the canyons carved by water in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains, the architecturally exposed, cast-in-place concrete spiral rises 8 m and spans more than 18 m. The cross section of the stair is rectangular with varying depth (from 400 mm to 1150 mm) to suit the structural strength and architectural requirements. During construction, reinforcing was hung off temporary beams spanning across the formwork from above so that chair marks are not visible on the exposed soffit.

The $375.5-million project was funded with $253 million from the Government of Alberta and $122.5 million from the federal government Building Canada fund.

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The Museum of Modern Art announces a major donation of material representing nine innovative built and unbuilt projects developed and realized between 1994 and 2018 by Swiss architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron. The works have been given to the Museum by the Jacques Herzog und Pierre de Meuron Kabinett, Basel, a charitable foundation established by the architects in 2015. The 23 physical objects and accompanying digital assets—sketches, study models, presentation models, and architectural fragments, as well as digital drawing sets, photographs, and videos—were carefully selected in close collaboration with the architects to demonstrate not only the final design output, but also the design process behind each project. These works join four Herzog & de Meuron architectural projects from 1988 to 1997 and one design object from 2002 already in the Museum’s collection.

“For more than three decades, Herzog & de Meuron’s practice has been a singular and defining voice in the discourse of contemporary architecture,” said Martino Stierli, The Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at MoMA. “Thanks to the generosity of the office and the Jacques Herzog und Pierre de Meuron Kabinett, we will be able to include these key works of contemporary architectural production in our changing collection displays when the Museum opens its newly expanded galleries in 2019.”

The nine projects entering MoMA’s collection demonstrate the breadth and depth of Herzog & de Meuron’s contributions to contemporary architecture. As with most of their work, some of these projects have challenged conventions of architectural materiality (Dominus Winery, Yountville, Napa Valley, California, 1995–98), structure (1111 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach, Florida, 2005–10) and typology (Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg, Germany, 2001–16; 56 Leonard Street, New York, New York, 2006–17). Herzog & de Meuron have looked beyond the confines of traditional practice to enrich their architectural work, which is often the result of close collaboration with artists.

In the projects showcased in the recent gift, these collaborations have involved artists Thomas Ruff (Eberswalde Technical School Library, Eberwalde, Germany, 1994–99), Michael Craig-Martin (Laban Dance Centre, London, UK, 1997–2003), and Ai Weiwei (National Stadium, The Main Stadium for the 2008 Olympic Games, Beijing, China, 2002–08). Finally, Herzog & de Meuron’s long engagement with Basel’s vital art world and with artists such as Joseph Beuys and Rémy Zaugg has decisively informed their large repertoire of architectural projects designed to allow visitors to experience modern art in novel ways. Two such projects, one private residence (Kramlich Residence and Collection, Oakville, Napa Valley, California, 1997–2018) and one museum (CaixaForum, Madrid, Spain, 2001–08), are included in this selection.

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The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) is composed of five pavilions: the Hornstein Pavilion (1910); the Stewart Pavilion (1976); the Desmarais Pavilion (1991); the Bourgie Pavilion (2011), and the new Pavilion for Peace (2016). The new building is located on Bishop Street to the south of the Desmarais Pavilion, designed by Moshe Safdie. The two buildings are linked by an aerial passageway spanning an alley. Whereas Sherbrooke Street has grown over the years to include larger-scale towers, Bishop Street has retained the 19th-century scale of Victorian houses. The project was conceived to address both of these scales simultaneously. The dynamic rotation of the bipartite composition allows a subtle integration of the Victorian scale. The rotation is geo-specific: the lower body turns and greets the visitor while the upper body opens toward the museum campus and Mount Royal further in the distance.

The MMFA campus is an assemblage of distinct architectural styles. Each pavilion evokes its era and provides a commentary on the particular role that the institution has played in society over time. This idea is foremost anchored in the unique circulation strategy of each pavilion. The Beaux-Arts museum of 1910, designed by architects Edward and William S. Maxwell, is structured around an introverted central grand stair that contributes little to the act of exhibition viewing. It is “as though the ceremony of the visit was of equal importance to the contemplation of the artworks themselves” whereas the Pavilion for Peace redefines the institution’s relationship with the city, offering a renewed museum experience.

Expanding upon the Bourdieusian theory of democratization of culture introduced by Safdie in his 1991 building, the Pavilion for Peace furthers the ideology of universal access to culture and continues to develop its social role and its communicative dimension. The proposed concept is structured around the event stair, addressing the expanded role of the 21st-century museum. This socio-spatial apparatus links the experience of the museum to the city and offers a multitude of spatial relationships. The in-between space, suspended in the city, animates the Bishop Street façade, providing visitors a momentary interlude from the contemplative experience of the galleries, and allowing them to reconnect with the city and the community beyond the walls of the MMFA. This interior urban promenade, fluid and filled with light, offers spectacular views of the mountain and the river.

Through its event stair, the architecture of the pavilion positions the visitors, rather than the artifacts, at the centre of the museum experience and activates bold, innovative programs associated with education and art-therapy. Its carefully choreographed architectural space facilitates social cohesion by encouraging impromptu public dialogue on art and a shared cultural experience.

The intimate scale of the Pavilion for Peace allows the MMFA to build upon this process of cultural democratization and to realize a museum that operates not as a sanctuary but as an accessible and engaged cultural agora.

Jury: The Pavilion for Peace beautifully and effectively fulfills its purpose of providing visitors with galleries, an all-in-one stairway, corridor, and linear public living room that winds its way up to the building. It works on both sides of its walls, providing a generous zone for gallery-goers within, while visually projecting its energy and activity to the city outside. The building is a sensitive insertion into the urban fabric, with a jogged façade that addresses the scale of the adjacent historic houses. The cool, abstract glass-and-aluminum palette of the exterior is balanced with the warm, natural wood of the interior. Its generosity of space and its strategic spatial zoning facilitates both efficient visitor movement and optional socialization. Visible from a block away and transforming into an illuminated lantern at night, the pavilion offers a transparent and welcoming transition from the gallery to the city.

Pavillon pour la Paix Michal et Renata Hornstein du Musée des Beaux-arts de Montréal

Le campus culturel du Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal est un assemblage de bâtiments distincts qui présentent, d’un point vue architectural et programmatique, une certaine autonomie. Chaque extension du Musée évoque son époque et offre un commentaire sur le rôle que joue cette institution dans la société. Cette idée, exprimée à travers leurs factures architecturales, se révèle aussi comme étant profondément ancrée dans leurs concepts de circulation respectifs.

Ainsi, lors du tout premier concours en 1910, au moment où les musées demeurent des institutions fréquentées essentiellement par l’élite Montréalaise, les frères Maxwell proposent un musée de style Beaux-Arts organisé autour d’un escalier d’honneur central « dénué de toute utilité pour les expositions […] comme si la cérémonie de la visite égalait en importance la contemplation des œuvres elles-mêmes. » Depuis la rue, le pavillon Maxwell demeure, comme il se voulait, hermétique.

En 1991, Moshe Safdie traduit l’idée d’un nouvel accès démocratisé et propose un musée post-moderne s’appuyant sur une approche typo-morphologique déclinant le patrimoine bâti immédiat. La ville pénètre le musée et participe à la vie du grand hall; elle occupe alors le centre tandis que l’escalier-rampe la borde et connecte visuellement et physiquement les différents niveaux.

Aujourd’hui, toujours impulsé par la critique « bourdieusienne » des années soixante, le musée poursuit cette idéologie d’accès à la culture légitime pour tous et développe son rôle social et sa dimension communicationnelle. À ce titre, nous proposons « le musée dans la ville ».

Ce concept spatial du « musée dans la ville » façonne la rencontre avec l’œuvre d’art et ses environs en offrant, à dessein, une expérience à la fois plus intime et participative à travers la conception d’espaces inter-galeries qui proposent aux visiteurs une expérience culturelle partagée. L’architecture du Pavillon pour la paix côtoie ainsi les expositions et les programmes éducatifs et publics en tant que partie intégrante du programme muséal.

À l’ère de la post-neutralité scénographique des salles d’exposition se dégage, pour l’architecture du musée, une possibilité d’affecter la relation qu’entretien le public avec l’œuvre d’art. Au-delà de sa fonction d’écrin pour les collections, l’espace muséal participe à la médiation des œuvres pour les rendre plus accessible au grand public. Cette approche témoigne de l’intérêt porté à des formes d’expositions ou de musées qui ne sont plus seulement centrées sur les objets ou les savoirs, mais sur les visiteurs. De plus, l’échelle intime du nouveau pavillon permet d’élaborer ce processus de démocratisation culturelle et de réaliser un musée non pas comme sanctuaire, mais bel et bien en tant qu’agora de la culture accessible et engagée. Dédié au volet éducatif, il offre une opportunité de poursuivre le travail d’enracinement communautaire et identitaire amorcé au pavillon Bourgie d’art Québécois et Canadien.

Dans cette optique, le concept proposé se traduit par la mise en place d’un dispositif socio-spatial, l’escalier-événement, qui se déploie en promenade architecturale informelle. Cet entre-deux, suspendu dans la ville, anime la façade de la rue Bishop et offre aux visiteurs une pause momentanée de l’expérience contemplative des galeries, leur permettant ainsi de renouer avec le contexte de la ville et de la communauté au-delà des murs du MBAM. Cet espace vertical relie l’expérience muséale à la ville et offre une grande variété de relations spatiales qui s’inspirent de l’idée de la rue et transfèrent cette expérience au musée.

CREDITS: Client montreal museum of fine arts | Architect Team Atelier tag—Manon Asselin, katsuhiro yamazaki, Pawel Karwowski, Mathieu Lemieux-Blanchard, Benjamin Rankin, Éole Sylvain et Cédric Langevin; Jodoin Lamarre Pratte—Nicolas Ranger, Olivier Millien, Guylaine Beaudoin, Serge Breton, Michel Bourassa, Israel Ludena Cermeno, Christine Trudeau-Guertin | Structural NCK—jacques chartrand and guillaume leroux | Mechanical/Electrical Smi énerpro—pierre lévesque and fabien choisez | exhibition design MMFA Staff, Architem, PRAA | lighting consultant cS design—conor sampson | acoustic consultant jean-pierre legault | Contractor pomerleau | Area 4,363 m2 | Budget $23.7 M | Completion November 2016 | Pavilion for Peace

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It was time to remember more deliberately. It was time to remind Torontonians, Canadians–and perhaps the world–of how we stood guard for our country. When the American troops invaded in 1813, the fort at the edge of Lake Ontario was the ground for the Battle of York. And afterward, for a long time, Fort York struggled to remain relevant.

A national competition in 2009 resulted in the design and construction of a new visitor centre at the Fort York National Historic Site in downtown Toronto. The joint venture team considered the site as the birthplace of Toronto; the fort is home to one of the oldest collections of fortifications in Canada, dating back to the War of 1812. Today, the Fort York Visitor Centre, completed in 2015, commemorates the historic significance of the site, providing a contemplative opportunity for visitors to reflect as they ascend to the Fort Commons to a final prospect overlooking the fort and the city beyond.

Strategically situated along the edge of the site, the centre is fortified and defined by a series of monolithic weathering steel panel walls, which resonate with the design of the fort just beyond, and define the horizontal datum of the battlefield immediately to the north. Beyond the weathering steel wall, the building rises toward the fort, ultimately providing a prospect onto the entire historic site through a belvedere located on the uppermost rooftop. It offers an intimate experience of the topographical history of the site, which vividly recounts the transformation of the grounds and the city through the decades.

With its frosted glass and rusty steel exterior, the centre is a long linear structure that sits southwest of the fort just north of the Gardiner Expressway. The weathering steel plates that comprise the façade are reminiscent of the area’s industrial past. Despite having been value-engineered within an inch of its architectural life, the centre is exquisitely detailed and spatially coherent. The project’s main facade is intimately interwoven in alternations of transparency and solidity, which seek to evoke glimpses from within the fortifications. The plan was devised to be sympathetic to both the linearity of the site and to the act of emerging from the history of the site. Thus, visitors to the building travel back and forth as they gradually rise to the final prospect of the fort. Along the way, visitors can learn about the history of the fortifications. Corridors, such as the time tunnel, offer vivid insights into the period in which the fort was built through digital media presentations and curated artifact displays and dioramas. In this way, visitors to the fort can gain a deep understanding of the history of the site in a relatively compact setting.

The project team was able to deliver the project without compromising the essential imagery, the expressive architectural content, and spatial arrangement of the project despite many budgetary, construction and timeline constraints.

Jury: This building is a powerful and robust intervention that serves as a threshold between the historic and the contemporary. Its linear plan and attenuated promenade builds on that edge condition of the on-site expressway. Its robust materiality and relentlessly repeated forms suggest the ramparts of the original fort. The design unapologetically celebrates the infrastructure around it, and invokes the concept of earth and the idea of fortification. Yet the Corten-steel canopies over the doorways provide both a welcoming entrance to this museum.

Centre d’accueil des visiteurs du Fort York

Il était temps de se souvenir plus consciemment. Il était temps de rappeler aux Torontois, aux Canadiens – et peut-être même au monde entier – comment nous avons protégé notre pays. Lors de l’invasion des troupes américaines, en 1813, c’est au fort, situé à l’extrémité du lac Ontario, qu’a eu lieu la bataille de York. Par la suite, et pendant très longtemps, le Fort York a eu bien du mal à maintenir sa pertinence.

La conception et la construction d’un nouveau centre d’accueil des visiteurs au lieu historique national de Fort York au centre-ville de Toronto sont le résultat d’un concours national qui s’est tenu en 2009. Les membres du consortium ont tenu compte du fait que le site est le lieu de naissance de Toronto et que le fort abrite l’une des plus anciennes collections de fortifications au Canada, qui remontent à la Guerre de 1812. Aujourd’hui, le centre d’accueil des visiteurs du Fort York, achevé en 2015, commémore l’importance historique du site et offre aux visiteurs une occasion contemplative de réfléchir lorsqu’ils montent vers les terrains de la garnison en profitant de points de vue panoramiques sur le fort et le paysage urbain au-delà.

Stratégiquement situé le long des limites du terrain, le centre est fortifié et défini par une série de murs faits de plaques monolithiques d’acier vieilli qui font écho au design du fort juste au-dessus et qui définissent un plan horizontal de référence au champ de bataille au nord. Au-delà des plaques d’acier vieilli, le bâtiment s’élève vers le fort et offre une vue sur tout le site historique à partir d’un belvédère situé sur la toiture la plus élevée. Ce belvédère offre une expérience intime de l’histoire topographique de l’emplacement, qui retrace avec éclat la transformation des terrains et de la ville au fil des ans.

Le centre d’accueil, avec son verre givré et son extérieur en acier rouillé, est une longue structure linéaire située au sud-ouest du fort, juste au nord de l’autoroute Gardiner. Les plaques d’acier vieilli rappellent le passé industriel du secteur. Le bâtiment innovateur a été conçu pour durer longtemps, mais son architecture est tout de même merveilleusement détaillée et cohérente sur le plan spatial. La façade principale du projet fait alterner la transparence et la solidité pour évoquer les vues que l’on avait de l’intérieur des fortifications. Le plan a été conçu pour s’adapter à la linéarité du site et pour donner l’impression qu’il émerge de l’histoire du site. Ainsi, les visiteurs vont d’un côté à l’autre du bâtiment lorsqu’ils montent graduellement vers le point de vue final sur le fort. Le long du parcours, ils peuvent se renseigner sur l’histoire des fortifications. Des corridors, comme le tunnel de l’époque, offrent des aperçus saisissants sur la période à laquelle le fort a été construit par des présentations multimédias et par l’exposition d’artéfacts et des dioramas. Dans ce parcours, les visiteurs du fort peuvent approfondir leurs connaissances de l’histoire du site en relativement peu de temps.

L’équipe a réussi à réaliser le projet sans compromis à son imagerie essentielle, à son contenu architectural expressif et à son organisation spatiale, malgré les nombreuses contraintes relatives aux budgets, à la construction et à l’échéancier.

CREDITS: Client City of toronto | Architect Team Patkau Architects—James Eidse, Mike Green, Dimitri Koubatis, Shane O’Neill, John Patkau, Patricia Patkau, Thomas Schroeder, Luke Stern, Michael Thorpe; Kearns Mancini Architects—Jonathan Kearns, Dan McNeil, Lucy O’Connor, Zhivka Hristova, Tony Mancini, Peter Ng | Structural Read Jones Christofferson Consulting Engineers | Mechanical/Electrical Cobalt Engineering | Civil MMM group | landscape Janet Rosenburg Associates | heritage Unterman McPhail associates | renderings Luxigon / Patkau Architects | Area 2,380 m2 | Budget $12.2M | Completion 2014

Photography by Tom Arban, except as indicated.

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The Audain Art Museum is a $38.9-millon private museum in Whistler, BC. The 5,214-square-metre building houses Michael Audain’s personal art collection, which traces a visual record of British Columbia from the late 18th century to the present. It encompasses one of the world’s finest collections of precolonial First Nation masks, a superb collection of Emily Carr paintings, and works by some of Canada’s most significant post-war artists. These include Jack Shadbolt, E. J. Hughes, and Gordon Smith, as well as works by internationally known contemporary artists such as Jeff Wall, Rodney Graham, Stan Douglas and others.

The design of the museum navigates three powerful determinants. First is the need to house both the permanent exhibition of Michael Audain’s collection and temporary exhibits of all kinds from across Canada and around the world. The second determinant is the beautiful but challenging site. The former municipal works yard, although endowed with areas of magnificent coniferous canopy, is located within the floodplain of Fitzsimmons Creek and in need of environmental reclamation. The third determinant is the enormous snowfall typical of Whistler, averaging nearly 4.5 metres annually.

The design responds to these determinants by projecting a volume of sequential public spaces and galleries into an existing void within the surrounding forest. It is elevated a full storey above the ground and crowned with a steep roof which defines a volume for administration and back-of-house support functions. The plan doubles as an integrated thermal strategy by using non-gallery zones as buffers between the demanding gallery environments and the exterior envelope.

Building form and siting work synergistically with existing trees to embrace a reclaimed forest meadow. Directly across Blackcomb Way is Whistler Village. A bridge at street level draws the public from Blackcomb Way over the floodplain and through the trees onto a protected and sky-lit porch overlooking the meadow. From there, visitors can either descend to the forest floor or enter the museum. Via the descent, visitors link to the site and the Whistler Cultural Connector, a public footpath binding the cultural institutions and parks of Whistler. When they enter the museum, visitors gather in a lobby and event space that frames a wide view of the forest. Visitors then follow a glazed walkway overlooking the meadow. Permanent collection galleries precede access to the temporary exhibition galleries.

The character of the building and interiors is deliberately restrained to provide a quiet, minimal backdrop to the art and the surrounding natural landscape. The simple form of the exterior is clad in an envelope of dark metal which recedes into the shadows of the surrounding forest. Where this envelope is opened – to provide access to the entry porch or views from the glazed walkway to the galleries – a luminous wood casing overlays the dark metal. Public spaces in the interior, which are visible from the exterior, continue this warm materiality. Gallery interiors in both the permanent and temporary exhibition areas are closed white volumes with minimal detail.

JURY: This is a structure that is, among other things, a total response to site conditions. The architects have taken exceptional care to position the building in deference to the exiting trees and over the seasonal flood plane, keeping the building’s footprint at a minimum. Inside, they have displayed a masterful control of artificial and natural light. Their mode of fragmenting the natural daylight at the covered entrance evokes the dappled light of the forest, and glazing along the circulation spaces brings in the actual forest light. The entrance bridge from the roadway and the stairway from the ground each invite visitors into the museum in almost story-like fashion. This building is both complex and serene, a masterpiece on every level.

Musée d’art Audain

Le Musée d’art Audain est un musée privé situé à Whistler (C.-B.). Le bâtiment de 5 214 mètres carrés abrite la collection d’art personnelle de Michael Audain, qui trace un portrait visuel de la Colombie-Britannique de la fin du 18e siècle à aujourd’hui. Le musée regroupe l’une des plus importantes collections au monde de masques des Premières Nations de l’époque précoloniale; une superbe collection de tableaux d’Emily Carr; ainsi que des œuvres de certains artistes de l’après-guerre du Canada, parmi lesquels Jack Shadbolt, E. J. Hughes et Gordon Smith, et d’artistes contemporains de réputation internationale, tels que Jeff Wall, Rodney Graham, Stan Douglas et bien d’autres.

Le design du musée répond à trois déterminants puissants. D’abord, il doit d’héberger l’exposition permanente de la collection de Michael Audain et des expositions temporaires de tous types provenant de la grandeur du Canada et d’ailleurs dans le monde. Ensuite, le site de grande beauté pose certains défis : l’ancien terrain de travaux publics de la municipalité est en partie boisé de conifères, mais il est situé dans la plaine inondable du ruisseau Fitzsimmons qui a besoin de réhabilitation environnementale. Enfin, il est situé dans une région réputée pour ses fortes précipitations de neige, Whistler en recevant près de 4,5 mètres par année.

Le design tient compte de tous ces facteurs. Un volume d’espaces publics séquentiels et de galeries s’étire pour pénétrer à l’intérieur de la forêt environnante. Le bâtiment s’élève d’un étage au-dessus du sol et il est couronné d’une toiture pentue qui définit le volume des espaces administratifs et techniques. Le plan fait aussi office de stratégie thermique intégrée, car il utilise les zones autres que les galeries comme tampons entre les galeries qui ont de plus grands besoins d’énergie et l’enveloppe extérieure.

La forme et l’emplacement du bâtiment sont en synergie avec la forêt existante et englobent un pré forestier réhabilité. Le village de Whistler est de l’autre côté du chemin Blackcomb. Les visiteurs arrivent par un pont piétonnier au niveau de la rue qui surplombe la plaine inondable et serpente à travers les arbres pour les amener du chemin Blackcomb jusqu’à un porche protégé jouissant de la lumière naturelle. À partir de là, ils peuvent descendre au niveau de la forêt ou pénétrer dans le musée. En descendant, les visiteurs ont accès au site et au Whistler Cultural Connector, une voie piétonne qui relie les institutions culturelles et les parcs de Whistler. Lorsqu’ils entrent dans le musée, les visiteurs se rassemblent dans un hall et espace événementiel qui donne sur la forêt. Ils suivent ensuite une allée vitrée qui donne sur le pré. Les galeries qui abritent la collection permanente précèdent les galeries d’expositions temporaires.

Le caractère du bâtiment et de ses espaces intérieurs est délibérément sobre pour offrir un environnement de calme et de sérénité, une toile de fond minimale pour l’art et le paysage naturel environnant. L’extérieur du bâtiment, de forme simple, est revêtu d’un parement en métal foncé qui s’estompe dans la pénombre de la forêt. Là où l’enveloppe du bâtiment est ouverte – pour donner l’accès au porche d’entrée ou aux vues de l’allée vitrée menant aux galeries – un revêtement de bois lumineux complète le métal foncé. Les espaces publics intérieurs, que l’on voit de l’extérieur, sont également revêtus de ces matériaux chaleureux. Les espaces intérieurs qui abritent les salles d’expositions permanentes et temporaires sont fermés et très sobres dans leurs détails.

CREDITS: CLIENT: Audain Art Museum | ARCHITECT TEAM: John Patkau, Patricia Patkau, David Shone, Mike Green, Marc Holland, Cam Koroluk, Dimitri Koubatis, Luke Stern, Peter Suter, Michael Thorpe, David Zeibin | STRUCTURAL Equilibrium Consulting Inc. | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL Integral Group | CIVIL Creus Engineering | LANDSCAPE Philips Farvaag Smallenberg | AUDIOVISUAL: MC Squared System Design Group | CODE LMDG | ENVELOPE Spratt Emanuel | FLOOD Kerr Wood Leidal | GEOTECHNICAL Geopacific | LIGHTING: Horton Lees Brogden | SNOW Mountain Resort Engineering | SPECIFICATIONS: Susan Morris Specifications | SURVEY Survey Services Ltd. | CONTRACTOR: Axiom Builders | AREA: 56,000 ft2 | BUDGET: Withheld | COMPLETION: Spring 2016

Photography by James Dow / Patkau Architects.

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The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) today announced plans to begin work on the Helga and Mike Schmidt Performance Terrace and the Reed Family Plaza. This initiative is part of the Museum’s Welcome Project, established to provide greater access to the Museum and enhance the ROM’s role as a vital civic hub for the city and its visitors. Slated for completion in early 2019, the project will create a vibrant streetscape and outdoor gathering space beside the Museum’s Bloor Street entrance. Encompassing nearly 5,500 square feet of exterior space, the initiative was made possible by lead donors Helga Schmidt, and Nita and Don Reed.

In December, the ROM completed the first stage of the Welcome Project with renovations to the Museum’s landmark Queens Park façade and the re-opening of the Weston entrance doors. “Thanks to the generosity of our donors, we are now taking another important step in our revitalization plans by animating the space around the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal on Bloor Street,” said Josh Basseches, ROM Director & CEO. “The addition of the Helga and Mike Schmidt Performance Terrace, and the Reed Family Plaza will create a seamless link between the Museum and Bloor Street and serve as a welcoming space that brings people together in the heart of the city.”

Designed by Toronto architect Siamak Hariri of Hariri Pontarini Architects, the project will be anchored by landscaping and an outdoor performance terrace. The Reed Family Plaza, which runs along the Museum’s north-facing façade, will feature an elegant gathering space with plantings and seating that will enhance the pedestrian experience and offer visitors an inviting spot to meet, sit and relax.

“Our family is very pleased to support the ROM’s next exciting chapter of community engagement with the Reed Family Plaza,” says Nita Reed, ROM Trustee and long-time ROM donor and volunteer. “We are looking forward to seeing it come to life as a dynamic Museum space along Bloor Street.”

The Helga and Mike Schmidt Performance Terrace will be located on the northwest corner of the Museum overlooking Philosophers’ Walk. The outdoor performance and event space will provide a unique open-air venue for music, theatre, discourse, and performances for all to enjoy.

“As a lover of operetta and live performance, it’s a joy to support the creation of an outdoor performance space at the Museum,” says Helga Schmidt, philanthropist and ROM supporter. “My late husband would have been very proud of this moment, which honours our shared love of music and the arts.”

This project opens the doors of theRoyal Ontario Museum ever wider while providing new ways to deepen the ROM’s connection with the community and participate in the urban life of the city. Both the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal Entrance on Bloor Street and the Weston Entrance on Queen’s Park will be open throughout the construction process.

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With its idyllic setting facing the Saint John River opposite the Provincial Legislature, the Beaverbrook Art Gallery has been a distinguished presence in Fredericton from the moment its doors opened in 1959. The building’s clean, symmetrical form and simple lines presented a midcentury masterpiece in a city better known for Loyalist and Victorian structures.

Since that inauguration, the gallery has episodically transformed itself by responding to expanding audiences, growing collections, and benefactors. Three additions between 1983 and 2010 have more than doubled the area of the original public spaces. But its newly completed expansion is its boldest and most ambitious transformation yet. As a longtime resident of Fredericton and an adjunct curator at the Beaverbrook since 2008, I have seen many of these changes first hand, and I have long admired how such an institution can contribute to the city through its architecture. That said, the gallery has over most of its life presented a somewhat formal and opaque presence, which has hampered its connection to pedestrians and to the waterfront—until now.

Led by Halifax-based Mackay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects, the expansion propelled the institution into the 21st century. New features include lofty new galleries, a bright café, visiting-artist studio, learning centre and lecture hall, additional art storage space, outdoor sculpture court, improved wheelchair access and other accessibility improvements. But most significantly, its new three-storey, 14,000-sq.-ft. pavilion has created a new openness and visual connectivity between the inside and outside. The result is distinctively contemporary yet sensitive expansion of Lord Beaverbrook’s original building design.

Talbot Sweetapple, the partner-in-charge of the project, respected the art gallery’s unique siting at the converging point of the river, the riverside park, and the city centre. “The expansion is an opportunity to connect to these landmarks, realizing the Gallery’s full potential through a stronger relationship to the urban context and the public,” says 
Sweetapple. He felt that to truly engage the public, “the Beaverbrook Art Gallery must extend outwards beyond its walls into the open air and the civic realm.” The way to do this, he calculated, was to first create strategic views from the gallery interior to the outside, and vice versa; and then to create vibrant new outdoor spaces.

A sweeping new sandstone-clad loggia-like pavilion wraps around the east end, opening to the Saint John River and Fredericton’s cherished riverside park, known as the Green. Two giant picture windows open from the main floor galleries to the exterior landscape, sharing art with the city and enticing passers-by with discreet views of the art within. And visitors inside the gallery now can behold the panoramic landscape vistas through which Fredericton has defined itself.

It is said that while Lord Beaverbrook loved the art that hung on the gallery walls, his favourite painting was the great north-facing window that offered a broad vista of the River and the landscape beyond. The window was filled in decades ago during a later addition, but it originally constituted the rear facade of the central High Gallery, right next to Salvador Dali’s enormous painting Santiago el Grande. MLSA’s huge new windows and continuous ribbon of glass at the ground level are bold and effective gestures that rekindle that rapport. These large expanses of glass feature protective coatings, ceramic fritting and louvres, shielding the artworks from sunlight while maximizing views to the outside.

The two levels of the addition provide much-needed public amenities and versatile contemporary galleries for the Beaverbrook’s permanent collection as well as touring exhibitions. Floor-to-ceiling glass on the lower level brings in natural light and establishes its public presence through the sunken sculpture garden and a secondary entrance. The café and learning centre face the street and the Green, and their activities will spill out onto the sculpture garden terrace during the warmer months.

The marquee spaces of the sweeping east wing are the three large galleries that fill the main level: the Elizabeth A. Currie Gallery on the Green, the Jean Irving River Gallery and the Dali Gallery. Two smaller gallery spaces feature drawings as well as paintings by emerging artists. At the end of this procession sits the shrine-like Salvador Dali Gallery, a space carefully tailored in ceiling height and overall proportion to fit Dali’s masterpiece Santiago El Grande and the Beaverbrook’s three other Dali portraits. The renovations also included refinements to some of the original gallery spaces, such as the Harriet Irving Gallery and the Orientation Gallery, both adjacent to a refitted entry lobby.

At the lower entry level of the new wing, the hard-surface landscaped sculpture courtyard will provide an important place for public art and outdoor performances. An articulated concrete wall serves as a boundary as well as a place to sit. It also helps protect the lower level from the city’s periodic spring floods.

The architectural language of MLSA’s Beaverbrook addition is consistent with the firm’s rigorous approach of fusing form and function in a Maritime context. The design team has created a volume and spatial layout that is spare but refined, and this contextual respect is perfectly aligned with the spirit of the original building. Both the original gallery and the new pavilion convey a spartan sensibility, with quality materials and a textural play of light and shadow on clean walls. Beyond the formal distinctiveness, the new facility fuses architectural goals with social and cultural purpose, anticipating enhanced public programs and new audiences. It is a superb fulfillment of its role as the provincial flagship art gallery.

Photos by James Brittain, execpt as indicated.

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Directors and designers of museums are rethinking the end-use of the typology. Are they hallowed halls of education and spiritual replenishment, like old-fashioned libraries and churches, to which the visitor makes a pilgrimage? Or are they something else altogether now?

For the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the design consortium 
of Atelier TAG and Jodoin Lamarre Pratte, the purpose is emphatically shifting towards that socially minded imperative. The 2013 competition brief for a new fifth pavilion to its Sherbrooke Street building itself called for a redefinition of the museum for the 21st century, recalls Katsuhiro Yamazaki, who with Manon Asselin of Atelier TAG, led the design team. “It was more about how museums contribute to society, instead of mere contemplation and consumption of artwork,” he says. “We asked ourselves: How does it serve the community and visitors? Does it compete with theatres and other entertainment venues? Or does it hold its own place?”

For the museum’s newly completed Michal and Renata Hornstein 
Pavilion for Peace, the answer, in this critic’s mind, is all of the above. The design approach dovetails with the prevailing worldwide ethos 
of repositioning the museum concept as something more accessible and engaging than the fusty neoclassical piles and somber white-cube galleries of yore. And as part of that repositioning, the design team has transformed what we think of as functional, transitional, neutral space within a museum to serve this larger purpose.

The pavilion is based on the former site and footprint of two Victorian houses demolished to make way for the new pavilion, so the floorplate is compact. But the ambition is large and emphatically vertical. The upper three levels house much of the Museum’s international collection from medieval to contemporary. The lower two levels are devoted to art therapy and education, with focused attention on programming for children and youth. These latter components dovetail with the architectural transformation to make the building a true anchor of the community. Vertical bands of slender aluminum mullions scrim the glazed façade, blanketing the corridors and stairways with diffused light and transforming into a giant urban lantern after sundown. The sense 
of spectacle is pervasive—and intentional.

The five-level stairway presents itself as the main space of the pavilion—in a subversion of the usual architectural relationship, the galleries 
to which it leads seem deferential to it. The scissor-form stairway is not just for getting from one floor to another but to engage with other visitors on the stair-seats—la plage, as the design team calls it, with the same spirit and nomenclature as “the beach” stair-seating in Ryerson Student Centre by Snøhetta. At a visual level, visitors then engage with the city itself through the slender aluminum mullions of the glazed façade.

It’s a stark contrast to the conventional museum formula (operatic stairway to the mezzanine level, followed by opaque walls and utilitarian stairways). Moshe Safdie had played with the idea and form of the museum stairway in the 1994 design of its Desmarais Pavilion at the Sherbrooke Street side: that stairway’s low risers and deep runners made ascension a more contemplative process—challenging, even. You need 
to be more conscious of where your feet are heading on Safdie’s oddly proportioned steps or you’ll stumble. But the Peace Pavilion’s stairway makes ascension not just contemplative but also social.

The short hallways between stair and gallery are not neutral conduit spaces or architectural intermissions but distinctive programmes in themselves. A strategic slot-reveal on the top level’s corridor wall provides 
a visitor with a sliver-glimpse of dark spaces filled with medieval art. Generously sized and bathed in daylight, theses spaces bear a warm aesthetic of rift-cut white oak, black Jet-Mist granite and polished concrete.

The entry point for these programmes is through the pavilion’s Bishop Street entrance, a gesture that effectively shifts the centre of gravity as well as purpose of the venerated museum. The façade itself literally shifts, in a diagonal setback from the street at ground level and then projecting over the street in an opposing diagonal at the third level.

The Peace Pavilion is separate from the two main pavilions of the museum, but it has connections for visitors to access the main museum at both the third level and the basement. At ground level, the foyer multi-tasks as functional and social space, a kind of nerve centre for the rest of the pavilion, but eminently welcoming. From there, visitors are directed to their specific goal: on-site art classes, childhood activities, art therapy. This is museum as interactive community resource, rather than a passive recipient of a visitor’s gaze.

As Yamazaki points out, this kind of architecture is never “finished”—
it is now up to the museum and to the people to carry it forward and activate it. “It will be interesting to see how the museum is appropriated by different communities, how they will find common ground there in that space. That’s a much broader idea of art.”

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A nearly instant icon on Washington D.C’s National Mall, The National Museum of African American History and Culture has been named as the Overall Winner at the Beazley Designs of The Year for 2017. Designed by British-Ghanian architect Sir David Adjaye in collaboration with the Freelon Group and Davis Brody Bond, the Smithsonian Institution museum opened in the fall of 2016, quickly becoming a massively popular destination, welcoming some 3 million guests in its first full year of operation.

With the three distinctive tiers of aluminum now forming a well-established landmark, the museum was described by New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman as “the first really fine major public building of the century to rise in the nation’s capital.”

The National Museum of African American History and Culture was joined as a Beazley award winner by four works from a variety of design disciplines. The winners are: Graphic Design of the Year: ‘Fractured Lands’, New York Times Magazine, Product Design of the Year: AIR-INK , Fashion Design of the Year: Nike Pro Hijab, and Transport Design of the Year: Scewo.

Now in their 10th edition, the Beazley Designs of the Year are presented as an annual exhibition at London, England’s Design Museum. The exhibition brings together over 60 global projects that were nominated across the six categories Architecture, Digital, Fashion, Graphics, Product and Transport – featuring film, virtual reality, audio and objects representing the breadth and variety of this year’s designs. This year’s exhibition will run until February 18.

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